Dock Rone, seen here in 1967, was an important part of the integration of the University of Alabama football team, a topic that is examined in the new documentary titled "Three Days at Foster."

Written by

Ray Glier
Special for USA Today

For years, Alabama football fans insisted Hollywood - or at least sensationalist media - had perpetuated a myth about the integration of the program.

Followers of coach Bear Bryant said it was nothing but a Hollywood-style script that Bryant recruited blacks because Southern California running back Sam Cunningham had run roughshod over the all-white Crimson Tide on Sept. 12, 1970. Bryant had been painted as a reactionary racist forced to do the right thing only because of wins and losses.

Cunningham's impact was a myth, because sitting in the stands that night when USC trounced the Tide ...